Possibly Rare In November

Many people in the Tuileries, waiting for the
leaves
to fall, in vain.

Blue Skies In Paris

Paris:- Friday, 12. November 1999:- Today's sun
has effected a rare rendezvous with last night's TV-weather
forecast producing a sky full of solid blue. The day also
has, as last night's TV-weather lady said, temperatures
'below normal' for this time of year.

Because the TV-weather lady never says what the 'normal'
temperatures are, I will tell you exactly what these 'below
normal' ones are supposed to be. Up from the night's low of
4 C to a high of 9 C. Watchout! Some streets have
wind-chill breezes in them.

For readers in Paris, yesterday was another occasion for
the weekly 'Café Metropole Club' meeting. For me, it
was also an evening spent getting its 'report' online.
Therefore, this morning I leave the
radio-news turned off in order to think of what today's -
this! - feature will be.

The Place de la Concorde,
without giant wheel, but full of little wheels.

'Metropole Paris' has evolved a bit since I started
doing it. Feature ideas used to come to me in the morning
shower, from the stimulation of hot water sprinkling on my
head. My new shower does not do this so conveniently; and
having the radio-news on prevents thinking of any sort.

Instead of 'feature idea' I think of four or five items
of information I'm supposed to track down or pick up - not
for a feature, but for all the silly columns that now fill
the week's issue.

This is how I decide to go to the Place de la Concorde.
We - you readers and me, the ed - have a missing event at
Concorde. Since September there has supposed to have been a
giant ferris wheel - absolutely colossal! - in the place.
If it is indeed there, today's sunshine will make it
photographable. Who knows when the sun will shine gain?

I should also cruise by a couple of places where I can
find out about coming events too. But I don't want to go
all the way to Saint-Lazare or the Champs-Elysées;
having been in both areas last week. There's a book I'm
looking for too, but will probably only find used - but
where?

Before I go anywhere, I should check the incoming email.
It may contain nuggets. Then I remember to phone Gary Carp,
who I am trying to lure into becoming a 'live' source for
rock-and-roll in Paris.

Phoning Gary is an adventure. I have only met him once
before, in June, and that was an adventure. When I dial, I
do not know I'm calling a number on the 'liste-rouge' -
which is unlisted - and it is also filtered by an answering
robot.

Gary does phone back, fairly quickly. He talks; I fill a
page with notes about people, places, bands, singers,
dancehalls. In an elliptical conversation, I have to draw
arrows all over the notes, to keep some sense to it. Then
he has to answer the other phone; he'll call me back. These
people with their 'other' phones!

I wait - blue sky outside is passing - and finally call
him. Now I can hear the metre ticking as 'adventure, part
II' goes on, and on.

My clock is passing 14:00 and this means there are no
more than two hours of reliable light left. Gary probably
remembers there is something he
has to do today, too, and the call ends. I have one arm in
a jacket sleeve when he calls back.

A cozy Le
Parisien reader.

"Don't tell anybody my phone number," he says, adding,
"It's on the 'liste-rouge.' Rock musicians do not want
calls from California after having gigs ending at 05:30 in
Paris. He grumbles about Thursday mornings, when the
cleaning lady comes. Gary says he and his wife are her
employees rather than the other way around.

Which reminds him that his wife is looking for English
teachers. "Native speakers," he says, "With papers! Don't
need to be teachers; but gotta speak real English!"

By this time all I know is I have to get out of the door
fast. Any faint notions of a feature have receded into the
past, overlaid with 'Paris rock facts.' All I can remember
is I had Concorde as a destination.

I am so disoriented that I have lost my 'personal Paris
space' instinct. This is an invisible bubble you acquire
after living in Paris for a time, which enables you to walk
down streets without having midgets constantly bumping into
you. Without my 'bubble,' when I dodge right, the oncoming
dodges left. On top of this handicap, I feel 'tilted' as
well.

Only two of the usual gang of musicians are sitting
around in the métro station. I think it is where
they have their time-out place - the trash cans are full of
empty bottles and candy wrappers, and there are 478
cigarettes butts on the floor - but just in this one place
where they usually sit.

I'm afraid to ask, but I think they have the concession
on métro line '4,' up to Gare du Nord and back. If I
ask, I may get 'adventure part III,' so I don't.

In general, I am trying to think of what it is like to
be in Paris. I am supposed to note the noise of the
métro wagon and pay attention to the other
passengers, and smell it all; and have eye-blinding
insights.

I do all of this. But I don't 'record' it. I scan the
station billboards for new posters. Nothing super
this week. The musicians who were sitting where I started,
get on at Odéon.

No, it's not the same two - but they are part of the
same gang. They are not bad, accordion and small
tambourine; until they do some show tune unrelated to
Paris. Is it 'Oklahoma?' 'When the winds go through the
tunnels?'

One of Rivoli's dozens of arches; all the
same, except the exceptions.

I can do the Châtelet switch-lines routine
blindfolded. I must have got my personal-space 'bubble'
back. Yesterday, going to the 'club' there was a ten-person
string ensemble performing in the tunnel, right at the most
important intersection. I had to climb over some of the
audience, sitting on the stairs, to get through.

The westbound line '1' train is fairly full, but it is
one of the new-model ones. As usual, nearly everybody has a
baggie-on-the-back, a gymnasium-sized one on the floor
about the size of a sleeping camel, or a two-wheeled
'granny-carrier;' plus some people do not know when the
fold-down seats should be folded up - so it is as tight as
it sometimes is during rush-hours.

Space is eased at Palais-Royal, where the customary 300
Louvre visitors get off. It is further eased at Concorde
where I and 200 others get off; onto a full platform where
everyone is milling about trying to figure out which exit
to take.

When you are in a situation like this, do not despair.
You will probably not know that the next train with 200
passengers to deposit is only 90 seconds of two minutes
from arrival - so it would be wise for the 4-500 people on
the platform to be off it. Take any exit you see and if you
are too short to see anything except fabric, follow anybody
who does not look like they are waiting for the next
train.

If you do intend to actually see Concorde, follow only
the blue 'sortie' signs. If you go down an
'orange-correspondence' tunnel, you will end up seeing
anything except Concorde - but this is fine for some folks,
who are probably in Paris only by accident anyway.

I follow the 'sortie' signs without much hope of taking
the right one. This ensures that I accidently do take the
one I want and this is the first time in two decades it has
happened.

It just goes to show that the only time you need take
care reading the directions, is when you want to transfer
from one line to another. Getting these wrong could get you
to the Porte d'Orléans instead of Montmartre.

The sky over Concorde is three shades short of Cobalt
Blue and there is no colossal ferris wheel in it, just a
very bright ball of sun. I shoot some throwaway 'postcard'
photos. The reason 'why' is because the light makes me do
it.

I shoot a lion on the shadow side - for another
throwaway - and Mlle. Strasbourg on her pedestal. I shoot
the working fountain because I will send its photo to the
Paris, Nevada architect who put a copy of the sister
fountain, now under renovation, in Las Vegas.

Although a lot of cars are going through Concorde, there
are periods between traffic-light changes when its roadways
are almost deserted; allowing a considerable number of
pedestrians to cross back and forth, either to see the
sights or pass from the Tuileries to the
Champs-Elysées, where the sculpture is still on
open-air display.

On the Tuileries side, the postcard-souvenir stand and
the snack kiosk seem to be different; less slovenly than
usual. Inside the high, gold-tipped iron gates, the
Tuileries seem to be as elegant as usual.

In fact, looking down towards the small Arc du
Carrousel, there seems to be a horde of people parading
along between the trees, some still with green leaves,
under the blue sky.

There is a bit of a breeze though, so not many people
are lounging around the octangular pool where it is
exposed. Over by the Jeu de Paume, south-facing walls are
reflecting what heat there is on a few parked against them.
One is reading today's Le Parisien. Or he is tearing strips
off it to re-light his pipe.

I have a throwaway collection of 'arch' photos, that I
have been adding to over the past couple of months, with
the vague idea of doing a feature
illustrated only with arches. This is against Metropole's
policy of only using photos from the current week, so I am
not quite sure how I am going to talk Ed into actually
running the feature.

Behind Rivoli's arches, the
tiles - some a bit faded.

He will say Metropole is not a photo magazine, but a
words-and-photos magazine and he can't think of any words
to go with the arches. Just like I can't think up a feature
article today.

The buildings along the Rue de Rivoli have arches,
practically all the way from Concorde to the Rue du Louvre
- which must be one of the world's biggest collections of
nearly identical arches. Professor Greb would tell me to
let the Guinness people know.

There is the arch-part of the arches, and then there is
the part behind the arches, which is the sidewalk, shadowed
by the arch uprights. A lot of times there are too many
people strolling along here to notice that the sidewalk is
faced with decorative tile patterns.

Some of these announce the establishments they are in
front of - such as the Brighton Hotel. The Hotel Maurice is
being renovated, so its sidewalk is narrowed and full of
people bumping into each other - which makes reading its
sidewalk tiles impossible.

Even though it seems like all the shops under these
arches are housing trinket dealers, there are others to see
as well. the Sulka shop is one example, and there are a
couple of opulent tea rooms, and the Galignani - the oldest
'American' bookstore in Paris - and a W.F. Smith's branch,
for those who prefer their books in English rather than
'American.'

By the Rue du 29. Juillet I have had enough arches - no
more than a third of them - and even though I've been
thinking of going as far as the Place des Pyramides to see
Jean d'Arc - no pun intended - I cross Rivoli to return to
the Tuileries and its round pond.

From its fountain, it is clear the breeze is truly one
from the northeast and explains why a lot of people look
like they're wondering why their left their gloves
behind.

Just beyond the Arc du Carrousel the Louvre's Cour
Napoléon is nearly all blue, with a warm band of
stone in the middle. A huge poster for the Denon exhibition
hangs from the scaffolding over the Carousel passage
through the Louvre's Seine gallery, and I go through it to
get a shot of its sunny side.

But the poster for Apple - 'think big' - is still in
place so I go east on the Quai du Louvre towards the Pont
des Arts. Over it, on the Quai de Conti, I shortcut through
the Hôtel des Monnaies and head towards Odéon
on the narrow Rue Guénégaud, full of buses
and little sculpture galleries.

About here, the afternoon's traffic is starting to
accumulate, especially in the Rue Mazarine. At Buci, I turn
left and then right into the Cour de Commerce
Saint-André, the alley running behind the
Café Procope.

Sometime in the past couple of hundred years, somebody
has paved it with uneven cobbles, which would be tricky in
high-heeled shoes. Boules were played here by customers of
Procope, but I don't think they were played on these
cobbles.

Sight-wise, it is a good alley. A little too good; this
is the reason I haven't been in it since before the Maison
de la Catalogne was opened; with its tourist promotion for
Catalonia, its culture section - the Espace Miró,
Espace Gaudi and Espace Pau Casals - and its bistro 'La
Catalogne,' which has right-looking tapas on its bar.

November in Paris, without having had my August on the
Costa Brava, is a
harder nut to swallow.

Going through the last arch of the day puts me across
from the métro at Odéon. The light is so
nearly gone, the camera won't even try to
get the film poster that shows Paris full of beach up to
the sixth floor - for a 'futurist' movie that began this
week.

I do not find the book I'm looking for and when I shoot
the last café, it is the camera's last shot. Fifty
images in the can, despite Gary Carp.

In the alley
behind the Procope, near the tea rooms.

All the streets around Odéon are plugged with
cars - a situation I am becoming more and more aware of.
The métro is less full, and even through it loops
west before going south, it is probably faster to Denfert.
The bus going up Saint-Michel might be faster yet because
it is more direct, but is probably full with shoppers from
Rivoli.

At this point, what we have here is what I do when I
don't have an idea for a feature. It is a bit like coming
to Paris and not seeing the big sights or the museums. Like
me, what you can do is just walk around and take it in with
your eyes, ears and nose.

But, if I felt like doing a feature today, I have photo
sets for three of them. This is on account of the, possibly
rare, blue sky in Paris on this day, in November.